This invention relates to a method and apparatus for dry spinning spandex yarns and the like providing an increased capacity with improved quality.
Spandex has been dry spun for many years utilizing an upright, elongated tube and spinneret arrangement both of circular cross-section. Spinnerettes may be arranged in coaxial inner and outer rings of grouped orifices each of which is equally spaced from the next succeeding orifice as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,002,474. The circular configuration limits the number of spinnerettes which may be used in a given tube or station because the hollow formed centrally of the spinneret arrangement becomes excessively large resulting in too great a spacing between centrally located spinnerettes and wasted capacity.
Another difficulty arises from the fact that all of the fibers must be taken up at the bottom of the tube so that the circular configuration makes it relatively difficult to draw the fibers down to be accommodated in a linear slot at the bottom from which the fibers are taken up.